Behavior Management: Individual {Elementary}

Obviously, there are lots of great ideas on behavior management in an elementary classroom. Sometimes it's hard to pick your favorite, and then a new technique is born: a remix of sorts, that combines several techniques you've seen.

I haven't taught elementary students in a while, but I've recently started thinking about making my way back down to their neck of the woods. It got me thinking about behavior plans, so I decided to record some ideas here for future use.

 1. Stop Light. This is probably the most simple method I've ever seen, but it really worked for the teacher I saw using it. (She used it on PK kids, by the way.) Buy a giant stoplight poster at a teacher-supply store. Something that looks like this would work:

Source: http://tiny.cc/xembi

Put magnets on the back of it and hang it on the side of a file cabinet. Purchase a clothespin for each student and write each individual name on one pin. When the student walks in, he/she immediately finds his/her clothespin and puts it on the green light. (So this method works as an attendance tracker, too! At a glance, the teacher can see who is at school and who is not.) If/when a student behaves undesirably, he/she is asked to move his/her clothespin to the next light. At the end of class, stamp the kid's take-home folder with the appropriate stoplight color to let Mom or Dad know what went down at school that day. Easy-peasy!

2. Behavior Cards. These seem like a pretty simple method, too. Post an envelope with different colored cards in it for every student in your room. You may wish to label the envelopes with students' names and re-label them every year, or you can assign every student a number and avoid the hassle of re-labeling. You may choose to have 3 colors or 5 colors or...you get the picture. But every color has a meaning. For instance, if you use the colors pink, yellow, orange, red, and black, every student might start on the pink card. Each time they act in an undesirable manner, they "pull a strip." A consequence might come with each of these new colors: yellow = walk/run for 1/2 of recess; orange = walk/run for 1 whole recess; red = phone call/note to parent; black = visit with the principal. It's a visual method that allows students to know exactly where they stand at any given point during the day. I've seen some teachers use this beautifully! It might look something like this:

Source: http://tiny.cc/86pfj

3. Behavior Ladder. (This is my personal favorite because it allows students a chance to redeem themselves by getting to move "up" a color.) Make a chart similar to this:

Source: http://tiny.cc/ncaxx

Again, purchase a clothespin for each student and write each individual student's name on one pin (or have the students do it themselves on the first day). As soon as students come into the room in the morning, they should find their clothespin and clip it to the "ready to learn" portion of the chart (and again, we're using this chart for attendance, too). If a child makes a bad behavior choice, she moves her clip down, just like virtually every other behavior chart. But this one adds something new: when a child makes a GOOD choice, she moves her clip UP. I love that students are not only getting recognized for good behavior choices, but they also have a chance to redeem themselves a little before the day is done! I have seen variations of this chart where teachers got creative with the listed consequences, so you can personalize this to fit your classroom and school's needs. I've also seen a teacher who had a "problem" with kids moving too far UP the chart, so he had to start devising creative ways to reward them. For instance, on this chart, if one of his students made a good choice while she was sitting in the "outstanding" area, he might clip her pin on TOP of the chart. Then he started clipping pins to his name tag. One of his little girls noticed his problem and presented him with a beaded necklace with his name on it...so students who were REALLY outstanding that day were clipped to Mr. Whatever's necklace.  I am in LOVE with this idea....can you tell?

4. Behavior Strip. This one was used in one of my classes in upper-elementary school. Each Monday, students received a new strip. The strip would list numbers 1-10, and sometimes there would be smiley faces in varying degrees of happy at certain numbers. (For instance, the 10 would have a smiley face that was grinning ear to ear. But the 5 might have a smiley like the one below.)

Source: http://tiny.cc/hm0dp

The strip was taped to the corner of each student's desk. The goal was to make it to Friday with all 10 of your numbers on the strip. If you messed up during the week, we had to cut the highest number off your chart. On Friday, if you had, say, 8 or more numbers on your chart, you could participate in the reward for the week (which was usually a movie or an extra recess). I'm sure the teacher had criteria in mind as to when to send a student to the office or when to visit with the student's parent or guardian, but she didn't share those ideas with us. This seemed to work OK, but I'd be afraid of Student A (who doesn't like Student B) snipping off B's number when B wasn't looking. You know, stuff like that. Anyway, it's an idea.

5. Points of some kind (pride points, stars, etc.). In my hometown, my school district uses "pride points." At the secondary level, the nominations and prizes are a little different, but at the elementary level, students are give a stick of 5 block math manipulatives (like the one featured below).

Source: http://tiny.cc/kt9ch

I've seen other teachers use this with star stickers or something similar. The students are required to keep their stick of cubes on the top, front of their desk all day long. Obviously, the goal is to keep all 5, but if you make a wrong decision, you lose a cube. At the end of the day, the teacher writes down the number of cubes you had in a specific spot in your take-home folder, and Mom/Dad has to sign off on it. This calendar inside the take-home folder allows everyone to see, at a glance, how student's behavior is over a long period of time. At the end of the week, if you had, say, 15/25 of your cubes, you could participate in reward Friday. (I don't remember the exact numbers; I'm totally making "15" up!)

6. Behavior Reward/Business Card. This is sort-of similar to the behavior strips theory, but I thought I'd list it, anyway. You make a "business card" for each student on the computer (or heck, go on over to VistaPrint and make 250 for FREE!). It should have their name in the middle (or a blank where the student can write his/her name) and some stars or other small graphic design that lines the edges like a boarder. From here, you can do one of two things: 1) color or stamp a star each time the student does something RIGHT, or 2) color or stamp a star each time the student makes a WRONG choice. I've only seen this in  one classroom, and I honestly don't remember exactly how he worked it. But you could adjust this to fit the needs of your classroom. Maybe you color in a certain number of stars for right choices, and then allow students with x-amount of colored stars on Friday pick from the treasure box...or something. In any case, it's an additional idea you can add to your list of potential methods!

What's your favorite from the list? Which techniques did I miss?